Yes, that was what the general public will remember... but it was anything but the truth. You were actually around when all of this was going on "PB"...

I'll lay it out one more time for anyone who doesn't know.

The VC/Mourning trade was on the table. It was about December (2 months away from the trade deadline). Babcock knew that it was an offer but had lots of time to field other ones before time was up.

Peddie got wind of the offer which allowed for some financial relief for MLSE and took the deal to the board over Babcock's head (Babs didn't have the absolute power that BC has now.... small wonder that BC demanded autonomy after seeing what happened before).

The board sided with Peddie and told Babcock to push the deal through.

ALL OF THIS WAS STILL 2 MONTHS BEFORE THE TRADE DEADLINE.

Babcock took the fall for the trade, while Peddie slunk back into the shadows.

Does anyone here REALLY believe that Babcock would have pulled the trigger on that deal in December when he still had LOADS of time to field other offers??

Then Babcock gets canned the following season before the trade deadline and Embry comes in and deals Jalen (a deal that Babcock had engineered) to the Knicks. Wow. What a hero.

Babcock wasn't "scared" to do anything. He had a plan and a vision and came into the shittiest situation in the league at that time.... and he STILL made some great moves.

He flipped Rafer for Mike James (who had the best year of his career in a Raps uni and worked beautifully with CB4).

He found Jose out of nowhere.

He drafted CV when almost no one else saw any kind of potential in him at all (and then watched him have a GREAT rookie season).

The man was asked to turn around a capped out team with a superstar who didn't want to play there anymore.... and he was asked to do it in ONE YEAR.

That's absolutely ridiculous. And there's no way in hell that anyone can tell me that they judge the quality of a GM in ONE off-season.

I really wish that I had saved some of those articles.... maybe I'll see if I can dig them up somewhere.